The Department of Heath and the Department of Children and Families have continued to consolidate administrative services. The Department of Heath has expanded its use of multi-county administrative consortia, achieved a $669,221 cost avoidance, and cut 14.65 administrative positions. The Department of Children and Families has created an Administrative Service Center to provide administrative functions for five districts and plans to centralize these functions for two additional districts by February 2001, but data on potential savings are not yet available.

The 2000 Legislature authorized the Department of Children and Families to create a prototype region that consolidates Districts 5 and 6 and a part of District 8 and involves consolidating all administrative services functions. If these efforts are successful, the department plans to continue with statewide consolidation and centralization of its administrative services functions.

Florida’s five health and human services agencies have developed baseline information on administrative services costs and have established performance measures for these functions. This will enable the agencies to determine the cost-effectiveness of providing in-house administrative services.

What were our earlier findings?Report No. 98-20Review of the Provision of Administrative Services in Florida's Health and Human Services Agencies, published in November 1998.